


sanga

by atmospherique



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blood, Gen, Kissing, Mindfuck, Non-Chronological, Psychological Torture, case study: is maitimo a good boy?, general misery, pov fuck, too much text formatting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-08-07 14:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16409795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmospherique/pseuds/atmospherique
Summary: 'There are no eyes among the walls.'Maedhros is captive in Angband, and Sauron takes the opportunity to rifle through his mind, memories and heart in search of Noldorin secrets. (A semi-experimental piece featuring Maedhros' relationship with his family and Sauron's notice-me-sempai complex.)





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> on formatting - this was written for desktop, which was honestly a terrible idea. sorry for any suffering the alignment/indentation causes mobile readers
> 
> on the timeline – keeping track of everyone's age proved fruitless. just know that i've set Morgoth's release before the birth of Curufin, at which point Maedhros is on the cusp of adulthood (along with Maglor, while Celegorm and Caranthir would be the Elf equivalent of 'mid-teens')
> 
> on language – (full language notes at end) 'c' for 'k' because i want to

i.

There's something not so wholly true in saying, **Maitimo knows.** Now most things he...

          hopes,

          wishes,

          suspects?

There's something detached in simply _**knowing.**_ A lack of stake in the matter—someone knows the egg becomes an eagle, the stars will bloom in the fade of the Trees, bloody beats the heart in the hroa. It's the things that only he can know that he can never really know anymore.

From the West and its halls and its flowers and its beauty to the East of Angamando and its dark hiving tunnels, he is no longer sure what pieces of his life are his and what memories are ( _his_ ).

 

 

ii.

It's his youth, and he's nearing adulthood. He can see the world for what it is now—all beauty and calm, what the Valar paint it. The way his parents have painted it since he was a tiny child. Bright beautiful colors over dark ones, flowers over the unchanging of rot and the scars of the past.

He can see it in the knot of his younger brothers struggles. When Tyelco and Carnyo fight and Huan growls beside them, it's always petty things. It's always...

His mother tries to teach him her craft. His father gave up on that long ago.

He likes swords.

His grandfather has a distant smile when Maitimo explains this, the sort of smile that doesn't understand. "There is no need now in Tirion for weapons like that." His grandfather doesn't mention the cruelties he saw when he lived in Middle-Earth, but Maitimo knows them from the stories the older Eldar tell the younger. Stories to frighten them of the dark Vala locked in Namo's halls.

But swords are challenging, and he is skilled at spinning and turning them and sparring with his cousins. It's sport, and **he is skilled at it.**

One day he walks through one of the doors of his home in Tirion. In the glow of Laurelin—

_(Laurelin)_

It's the Tree—

          it...

                    was...?

He doesn't linger on the light of the Tree because it's the light that's swaddled him since birth. Warm Laurelin, cool Telperion. He wouldn't—doesn't need to inspect this, but he lifts his head to sky and its pale starpoints, and the sky is a shade not so black as it is in the lands of the East.

 

The East...?

 

_(there's no need for such hesitance)_

_(he was looking at his father just a moment ago. he knows this place well)_

He walks through the door and its bowering, golden threshold. He walks through the door onto one of the verandas of the great house of Finwe where the green and starlight beauty of Valinor spills among Noldorin houses. His father is sitting there, arms peeled over the filigree railing, faced turned to the view, sleeves down.

          His father always ties his sleeves back when he works. He always seems much darker in spirit and his arms seem much stronger when his sleeves are tied back.

_(Feanaro)_

It's true his heart does not always think 'father' before 'Feanaro.' The Noldo is unapproachable, poor in smiles. And Maitimo has inherited this from him. At times, Feanaro falls to desperation and mania, driven to learn and to make, and he has little patience for his seven—no, four sons. Only his wife can move him from these moods. His wife and certainly not his eldest.

_(what drew him here? is there not someone else beside his father?)_

The figure is... is...

                    dark, tall, but Eldarin. Not bright-haired like the Vanyar, not delicate like the Teleri and not like any Noldo Maitimo has met. But...

                              something else.

 

**Moringotto**

 

He shakes his head. This is the brother of Manwe, the first of the Valar. Why has he...? Who is...?

_(Lord Melcor)_

That is his name.

He is standing beside Feanaro, not quite leaning down to him. His black hair bends over his back in a simple, single braid. His hands linger close to Feanaro's own. He doesn't looks very intimidating. Or shouldnt, but... does...

_(Lord Melcor was the one who stalked the Elves in Middle-Earth, the one who fought against the other Valar)_

          … the one who until so recently was chained in Mandos. It's not strange that Maitimo should balk at his presence, be cowed or shocked or feel his stomach tremble so slightly. The first of the Valar is saying something quiet to his father, and he is staring at Maitimo as he lingers by the threshold.

_(he is mighty, he is—)_

Who Are You?

Melcor's perfect face smiles.

Not like any Noldo Maitimo has met—more beautiful and infinite. Eyes with the depth and shine of unknapped obsidian and cold as the space between stars. Eyes mostly. There are other things on his face, but it's the eyes.

Melcor doesn't answer, but Feanaro stands at the sound of Maitimo's voice.

                    Had he spoken?

                    Yes, he'd asked, "Who are you?"

                    Hadn't he?

                    Hadn't he been asking...

                                                  someone else?

"Nelyo," his father says lowly.

Just that is enough for Maitimo to bite his eyes closed and turn away from Melcor, angle his face toward the ground.

Feanaro clears his throat and says more softly, "Nelyo, you're not with your mother?"

Maitimo doesn't answer. He doesn’t remember why he left his mother's side, what he had been doing there only a few minutes ago. But the pulse in his chest is so hot and fierce that he can taste it. It feels so real, so **this must be real**. _It must be real._

"This is your son, Curufinwe?"

Maitimo first heard Melcor's voice prostrate before Manwe's throne. The Vala was a mass of shadow and ice, far more terrifying than the not-quite Eldarin raiments of his fellow Ainur. He spoke in a language that Maitimo didn't understand, echoed with it, and the sound seeped like melt through the hall.

This voice now is everything it was before but more restrained, the way a bugle might make sweet notes instead of a claxon when played more gently.

"My eldest. Nelyafinwe, come here, what are you doing? Stand up straight. Lord Melcor has deigned to come to our home as a guest."

Feanaro doesn't always talk to him like he's a child, but he does more often than he should. Maitimo has heard his mother scold him over it. 'You're so harsh with Maitimo.'

He only looks at Melcor's chin as he approaches. He gives a short bow, covering his heart, stiffly saying, "It's an honor to meet you." When he unbends, he glances at his father beneath lowered lids.

"He takes after his mother," Melcor says.

Feanaro doesn't quite laugh. "That he does."

"In the good and the bad." Melcor's voice sinks back into that seeping.

What?

" _It's a shame," Feanaro is sighing._ Why is he sighing? Maitimo doesn't remember this.

          Remember?

          How can he remember this when it's only now happening?

" _It's a shame," Feanaro is sighing. "He has her face and her hair and her stubbornness but none of her tenderness, and he isn't nearly so filial. He will swear the oath, but he will only disappoint me after that."_

What...?

_He will defy his father on the shores of Middle-Earth. He will fail to save his father in the lands of Middle-Earth. He will betray his father's secrets in the depths of Middle-Earth._

"Precious one, you are meddling far too much."

 

It's a moment of near-clarity like bursting awake before falling back asleep. He's bent against black stones, on his hands and knees and the sound of footsteps circles and spirals him. Heavy footsteps, the weight of everything.

 

It's not his youth, perhaps never has been.

He likes swords.

He has heard his mother scold him over it.

                                                                      'You're so harsh, Maitimo.'

 

No, he feels the pull of a chaining grip in his hair. The air is violently hot and it smells of fire and smoke. His armor was stripped long ago, and his battered flesh is stuck—seared—no, just stuck against the shreds of his clothing with sweat and dirt.

It hurts.

Hroa, fea.

It all hurts.

 **This is Angamando.** The hand in his hair is the hand that slew his father, and all around him the world vaults up in black stone and decorations of gold and bronze where everything is edges sharper than a sword and made like talons and eyes.

Eyes.

He is made to kneel at the foot of Morginotto's throne, and the dark Vala is sitting there. Is staring at him. That same obsidian bright gaze, all smile and looking Eldarin but so much more and so much larger and more horrible. The glow of the Silmarilli is hollow and bright and casts shadows over his face. So perfect it hurts, horrible and he hates it.

_Perfect._

It hurts.

"It's a shame," Moringotto is sighing. "He has her face and her hair and her stubbornness but none of his father's fire."

His head is spinning. Hasn't the Moringotto said that before? Hasn't he knelt here already, smelt the burn of his hair already, hefted curses out of his heart and mouth already?

"Moringotto," Maitimo says. It's a naked rasp between his lips. _(do not speak that name)_ He spits out some insult, but he can't hear it or remember what it was.

          Remember?

          This is just a memory, too...?

He cries out as the hand pulls taut and lifts him from the floor. His bound hands struggle for purchase in the air, struggle for the root of the grip, but they find nothing, and there are tears in his eyes.

The valarauco's voice—foul Cosmoco's voice behind him grinds as heavy and low as stone cliffs. "How shall I punish him, my lord?"

"Punish? No. Little Nelyo has deigned to come to our home as a guest. We must be gentle with him."

 

 

iii.

"My work has not pleased you..."

"Why would I be pleased with your attempts to spy on me?"

"That is not my intention."

 

"My lord, I will undo him, I will uncover all of the Noldor's secrets for you."

"Don't waste my time. Play with the prince as much as you like, break him in two. But you'll quickly learn an Elda who loves his pride and freedom will not bend like one of your timid Avarin pets."

 

 

iv.

"Mairon."

It's a name.

Is it his name?

**He is Nelyafinwe Maitimo.**

_He is a servant of Lord Melcor._

"Nelyo," Melcor says this time. The other name unspeaks itself.

He falls to his knees _willingly. He wants to please his lord, wants the swell of pride to course through his chest, warmth and purpose and—_

 **This is a lie.** _(but it feels fine to think it)_

 

He is awake. He scuffles up. Off cold and dark stones where he was lying. He feels his body.

                    Shouldn't he always feel his body?

Yet it is as though ages have passed since he last recognized the sensation of hair-raising cold on his bare arms and chill setting deep in the cavity of his chest. He is trembling. His hair is raucous and knots over his shoulders. There are still fresh bruises and blood on his skin.

Was he dreaming?

For a moment, he must search his surroundings before he recognizes

 

**His Cell**

 

Like his fingers curled in his fist, he knows its shape.

                    Texture—here smooth, there rough.

                    Walls and floor and ceiling like a hollow space between something's ribs, or his ribs. Ribs, ribbing on his bare skin against walls and floor and ceiling.

He isn't sure how long he’s been here. Long enough for hunger and thirst to chew at him and long enough for the memory of Cosmoco's clawed fist in his hair to seem distant.

His people did not care much for counting time in Aman. There was always more of it.

There is always more time.

And he—Nelyafinwe—tall, of red hair, of a sword, of the Noldor, Nerdanel's son, kinslaying son has

                                                            more

                                        time

to curl here in the glow-dark stone cell with his bare arms wrapped around his legs and his head poor-pillowed against his knees.

 

Or maybe he has always been here.

  


No. **He was born in Aman, he grew up in the light of the Trees and under the face of the sky and all of Varda's stars. The depths and walls of Angamando are new, recent, like the wounds on his body. They haven't healed yet. He cannot have been here long.**

But already, he is weary. He thinks of his grandmother, her fading, how she must have been surrounded by love and warmth and comfort, and even that wasn't enough to hold her. He has been in the cell not long enough to forget those things but isn't sure if the sound of his mother's voice would comfort him if he heard it. If the spark of starlight would comfort him if he could see it.

He flinches at the thought of these things, his fingers crimping more tightly into the bare cloth on his shins, pricking down into his flesh. His hair spills down to the back of his hands, greasy and matted.

Blood. Blood is the mats, the knots.

Some his, mostly... not.

He smells it again now.

That... smell...

He hasn't dreamt it. **Not yet.** Only when he's awake does the smell creep up from within him, as if permeating his fea, looping again and again like the young sun in the sky. Body. Blood. Shattered hroar. The smell of his companions is no different than the smell of the Teleri, than the smell of so many deer slain and Tyelco’s smile in that blood.

The forests of Aman were rich with deer.

To hunt them was a joy. The race of feet and breath, the challenge.

He had smiled with Tyelco back then.

Then the smell strikes him all again, and he plows his nose into his shoulder to smell his own sweat instead. Sweat and dirt. But that blood smell is there, too. His eyes shut, his muscles tense.

_Barely touched and brought low..._

_Brought low..._

He shakes his head, and he snaps up with a sharp wheeze. Like someone pulled out of a river where they were drowning. And he breathes like someone pulled out of a river where they did not quite drown. His eyes chip at the walls, each corner and swerve of the misshapen stone.

But **no one is watching him.**

 

 

v.

_(Tyelco)_

**Tyelcormo**

 

_(one of his brothers)_

Turcafinwe, called 'Fair,' beloved of Orome, master of Huan.

_(Huan)_

The hound, Orome's hound. Sure of nose, sharp of—

_(never mind, he was thinking of his brother)_

Tyelco was born while Maitimo and Maco were still young. He is broad-shouldered and easy-natured until his temper is roused. Then he will not rest until his vengeance is satisfied and he would tear towers down if he found a mere stone in them offensive.

_(a warrior)_

A warrior and a hunter.

How he slew... how... how he...

_(in Valinor)_

How he slew his prey, chased it through the woods. The lift of his frame in a saddle, the curl of his fingers on a spear, the flow of his dark blonde hair behind him. He had a smile that would grip you like warm fingers around your cheeks. He had a smile that would bite you.

          Has.

          He still has.

          He's still alive...

                                        somewhere...

_Why shouldn't he be? There is no death in Valinor._

Maitimo is young, and his three brothers are younger. Maco doesn't often care much for hunting, and Carnyo is never invited when Tyelco is the one inviting. So Maitimo and Tyelco alone ride in the soft shadows of the woods. Tyelco is leaning his spear against his shoulder and his quiver and bow bob at his knee. He sits so tall in his saddle, but his face is young and unburdened as he listens to the birds and the beasts, waiting patiently for the sign of some worthy prey. Huan, not yet full grown, scours the ground for scents, his paws pressing softly against the ground.

The ground. It's all moss and grass and wildflowers and roots, and it's all alive.

                              In Middle-Earth, the forest floors are woven with leaf litter.

But Maitimo isn't thinking about that. He's speaking with his brother.

"Right?"

He blinks. Tyelco's bright eyes are staring at him.

                              Eyes...? Staring?

"Nelyo, are you listening?"

"Hmm? What?"

"I said Carnyo keeps touching my things. He won't shut up about my saddle being better than his—of course it is! And I caught him trying to use it on his horse. He didn't ask, not that I'd say yes, but he's keeps sneaking around lately, and I'm tired of it."

"What does it matter, Tyelco? You're his big brother, you should take the high road."

"Are you on my side or his?"

"I don't choose sides."

"Ugh, you're so boring. Come on, say the Dark Rider—"                              "—rode..."

                                                                                          "Tyelcormo..."                             "Don't..."

**You shouldn't speak of him so lightly.**

                                     "Come on, say the Dark Rider rode by," saying this, he casts out his hand, his mouth curls ominously.

"And?" Maitimo replies dully.

"Carnistir and I are standing there, totally helpless. Well, he's helpless. And the Dark Rider on his dark horse reaches out, and he's going to snatch us up! You only have time to save one of us. Pick."

"Pick?"

"Pick which one of us you'd save!"

"Why can't I save you both?"

"This is hypothetical."

"I'll save one of you, and Macalaure will save the other."

"Maco isn't there. You can't always win, Nelyo, sometimes you have to settle."

"That's pretty funny, coming from you."

Tyelco huffs and really looks like a child. His fists bunch on the reins and spear.

"Fine, I won't save either of you. At least I wouldn't have to listen to any more of your pointless arguments."

_"You'd let me be taken, just like that, Maitimo?"_

The horses aren't walking beneath them. They've stopped unbidden. The glow of the woods is pale gold and green, and the leaves hitch with the wind. Huan is whining and pawing at something, but Maitimo can't look away from Tyelcormo's eyes to see what's troubling the hound.

"No, not really," Maitimo says, and he swallows. Tyelco isn't smiling now nor does he look angry. There's a blankness in his expression that he's never seen before. "I'd throw myself at the Dark Rider before I'd let him take either of you."

_(so it would seem)_

Tyelcormo's smile is still there. As always. One eyebrow is quirked down, one tooth peering out.

Huan yelps, scatters dirt.

Tyelco glances wildly after him, then looks back to Maitimo with the rush of a hunt in his eyes.

_Eyes._

He's hefting his spear, and his arms are hard with muscles. "It's a stag," he says, and he kicks his horse.

He's gone.

_He's gone._

_He's—_

"Stop," Maitimo whispers. "I just want to talk to my brother."

 

It's screaming.

Fighting. They're in Middle-Earth, and it's only screaming.

Tyelco is on his black horse, and he's pulling a cleft helm from his head. There's blood in his hair and down his face, but his eyes are bright with fury. "Nelyo!" he calls. His troops are behind him, riding, blood, shouting. And there are bodies beneath their feet, guts and no smell. There's no smell.

Maitimo can't move.

Reins fill his hands, spit his mouth, sweat the seams of his armor.

And he can't move.

Tyelco draws to a halt, circles around Maitimo's horse to stare his brother in the face. "Nelyo," he says, "Maitimo."

There seems such quiet, even in the heave of horses as they trouble the fen waters.

"I'm here, Turco," he says softly.

These past days in the feint darkness where the light of the Trees never shone—he can't quite remember them. Perhaps his horse is sinking into the mud and the guts, and he is sinking along with it. Why can't he move? He should be swinging a sword, killing, watching his family be killed.

"Where's Father?" Tyelco demands. "Weren't you with him?"

Maitimo looks at the broken helmet hanging in his hand. "I'm glad you're alright."

"I asked about Father. _Did you lose him, Maitimo, where is he? Answer me!"_

 

Who Are You?

Why Are You Doing This?

 

"Why are you doing this?" The seeds of tears are in Tyelco's eyes. Maitimo has seen him cry before. Both in sorrow and in anger. It's so hard to tell.

It's the hour before Maitimo rides to parlay with the Moringotto's armies. And he cannot smell the bloodied bodies.

"Stupid," Tyelco says. He's so close, he's gripping the folds in Maitimo's clothes, and Maitimo's heart feels nothing. Like a scab over itself. He misses his mother then, unhurtingly. And the weight of Tyelco's arms pulls down on him. "You and your stupid pride."

He doesn't say, 'That's pretty funny, coming from you.'

You can't always win. Sometimes you have to settle.

 

 

vi.

_(interesting)_

 

 

vii.

Finally, he is given food.

He wakes or sits up like waking, and a neat platter of greens and meat and a skin flask are waiting for him at the center of the cell. It’s a small meal but a fine one, finer than he can imagine being reaped from the grotesque lands the Moringotto governs.

He doesn’t move for a long time.

          He wonders first if the food will simply vanish.

                    He wonders next if it will simply kill him.

                              He wonders finally if it’s simply food, and tries to shake this thought from his head, but his mouth hasn’t even watered at the sight of it. So dry. He rakes his tongue across the gritty roof of his palate.

                                        He wonders even more finally if someone is watching him.

His gaze shoots around the cell as his tongue keeps slicing against the edges of his mouth. Every surface is ragged edges. The ceiling looms in a curl above him. He’s stood in it before, and his head doesn’t quite skim the lowest point. He could stand to walk over to the food. He could crawl.

**There are no eyes among the walls.**

There is silence, within the depth of all this earth, there is silence.

He bites the crumble of his dry lips. He never heard anyone come in. How could he, **there’s no door** —

          No, **the door is right across from him**. How did he... forget?

Dark metal, solid. How, how did he forget? The sight of it ripples down his neck. He was so sure.

But, no, they wouldn’t have been able to put him in here without a door.

_He isn’t particularly clever, after all. There are many things he might never have noticed._

**There are no eyes.**

 


	2. II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyy, maybe next chapter won't take half a year. idk. (whole thing is plotted; i'm just bad at writing)

i.

_(Carnyo)_

**Carnistir**

 

Why?

 

_(he doesn’t bother asking why)_

He is young. He’s standing next to Carnistir. He feels like he’s not supposed to be here, wherever he is. And whenever. **Has this already happened?** It’s a tingling through his skull where it meets his neck, down into his mouth, through his throat—

_(it’s only because he’s nervous)_

He worries about Carnyo sometimes. He worries about all his brothers, of course—it seems his duty, but Carnyo in particular. Carnistir is the youngest, and if Maitimo doesn’t smile much, at times it seems his little brother doesn’t smile at all.

As the light of Telperion fills their mother’s study, Carnyo’s childish face is tight with a bitter scowl. He’s looking down at his toes as Maitimo glances over. His little fists curl and uncurl, black hair slips over his face.

Slips over a bruise.

“Maitimo,” it’s his mother’s voice.

His mother...

          His...

“ _Maitimo.”_

He looks at her. Even at relaxing, she never wears her hair down over her shoulders. Instead, it’s pulled loosely against the back of her scalp so her keen features are never hidden. Her features—wiser and refined but a mirror of his own. He remembers in his earliest years that his father would tease the two of them about it. He didn’t mind; he was fairly certain that his mother was the one person truly worth being like in the world.

She’s sitting in one of her reading chairs, her hands on her lap, and she looks as composed of one of her statues.

Maitimo doesn’t answer immediately.

Standing in her study is like standing in her arms; they wrap around him. He recalls being small, kneeling on her rugs, hands and knees soft. While he ran his finger through book after book, she would sit in the light at her desk, humming and tracing out designs in charcoal. She could draw just as well as she could carve, and he would grow tired of trying to decipher the old sarati tomes and come hang on her shoulder and breathe in what she drew. Faces real or imagined, animals, their friends, their family, the Ainur. Beneath the curled wooden ceiling beams, by the light of the trees, he was calm, and the air was warm and filling, and his mother’s pulse was where his chin fit in her neck and shoulder. Though, one time, he did ask, “Can you draw the dark Vala, too?”

_(but it wasn’t a very good likeness, was it?)_

For some reason, he’s thinking—isn’t thinking, is—

**He’s standing in his mother’s study.** His mother is sitting, and he’s brought Carnistir before her, gestures to him with his left hand. In his right hand, he feels a bunched fist, bunched fabric. He looks; he’s holding Tyelco by the collar, and his blonde brother is drooped defiantly against that hold. His face is turned away, but Maitimo can still see its pout.

“What happened?” his mother prompts. Her voice is so gentle, **it makes him cry.**

It doesn’t. His voice is gritted when he says, “They were fighting.” But that’s not unusual. Tyelco and Carnyo are always fighting.

Nerdanel nods. When she speaks to someone, it’s as though nothing but that person is in her thoughts, in her heart. She stares, kindly, deliberate. She has eyes the same color as Maitimo’s. “Come here, Carnistir,” she says.

His feet slide and shuffle forward, kicking at the tiles.

Her fingers lift his chin. She strokes back his hair, tucks it behind his ear, strokes it again. “Tylecormo has struck you.”

“No,” Carnyo says.“It was Maitimo.”

 

I’m Ashamed. Is That What You Want to Hear?

 

_(but there’s more to be said)_

 

He can never remember what they’re fussing about. One day it’s about touching each other’s things, the next about something the other said, who’s better at running, at riding, at something as trivial and useless as spitting. Today of course, he remembers because today is the day he...

 

“I don’t—it wasn’t—”

 

His mother’s voice says, “Tyelcormo, Carnistir, wait outside.”

His brothers leave and neither of them has pity in their eye when they look at him.

His mother doesn’t have to prompt him. He would _tell her anything_.

 

The four of them are in the garden. Four brothers, four sons of Nerdanel. Maco tries saying, “Tyelco, you’re being an ass.”

But Tyelco just says back, “Not as big an ass as Carnistir.”

Maco tries saying, “Just leave him alone.”

There’s no point in saying that the weather is nice because it’s always nice in Tirion, but today Maitimo really notices it. The garden is arranged by smells, and they work on their mother’s lessons among the green smells, the pensive smells, the smells that make Maitimo pensive. The leafing bowers are ringed in golden light, and Manwe’s songbirds huff in their unseen places.

The three eldest brothers are sitting on a stone bench practicing mathematics. Maitimo never finishes his work first because he always stops to help the others. Anyways, he could never finish as quickly as Carnyo.

The youngest brother is twirling a switch around, skimming the air with constant swishes, smacking the leaves, being a general noisy nuisance. “No one can help that you’re stupid, Tyelco,” he says, and he slices a green knot of leaves free from their vine.

Maco looks at Maitimo. As though Maitimo has the answers. As though Maitimo could make anything better.

_(can’t he? he’s not completely powerless, is he?)_

“Carnyo,” he says, “go play somewhere else.”

But Carnyo just gives him a sour look and swings his stick like a sword. The leaves swat, the air whisks, Tyelco growls, “You’ve got five seconds to take it back.”

Maco says, “Let’s not fight over anything. Please, just apologize, Carnyo.” He’s never patronizing, never angry, voice always clear as water.

“Why? It’s not going to make him any smarter.”

Tyelcormo isn’t stupid. He’s clever, downright devious when he means to be. If Maitimo called him stupid, he’d laugh because he knows Maitimo could never think him stupid.

But everyone knows that Carnistir is the smartest. Even though he mopes most of the time and understands fussing better than conversation, Feanaro doesn’t chide him so much. Carnistir certainly doesn’t need mathematics explained to him; he learns instantly, understands always and yet gets no joy out of this fact. He’s too quiet for joy. Feanaro praises him simply and assumes his manners will unwrinkle with time. But everyone also knows Carnistir is different. His happiness doesn’t come from his family or other people. It doesn’t rest calmly in his heart the way it rests in other peoples’ hearts, which is why he hurts differently, too, and knows too easily how he might hurt others. If he wants.

Tyelcormo, on the other hand, mostly just knows how to hurt people with his fists.

_(then the two of them always fight each other?)_

No.

          Maitimo can’t let his family fight itself.

**Especially not now that their father is dead.**

“Honestly,” Carnyo says, “it’s kind of embarrassing. Father’s embarrassed, at least. If you could actually die of embarrassment—”

Of course, Maitimo didn’t start anything, he only finished it.

Nerdanel has Maitimo’s face but wiser. She is strong in heart and in mind and spirit and body and strong enough to fix things with a word.

Maitimo is ashamed of having ever been young, of having ever made a single mistake. Years later, when they’re older, sometimes Tyelco says, ‘Remember when Nelyo gave you a black eye?’ And Carnistir laughs like a wheeze and says, ‘Yes.’ And Maco says, ‘Do remember how he bribed you to like him again?’ And Carnistir says, ‘I should have let him punch me more often. I practically had him on a leash after that.’

Because none of them think it matters. Bruises fade, forgiveness is blood-thick, thicker than a bruise, and children do foolish things and think hurting something can heal something else. Some siblings kill each other, don’t they? But a thousand tiny mistakes can kill a person, too. **Right now, Maitimo is somewhere cold and he won’t let himself be the killing mistake.** Maybe he already is; he can’t remember. Who is dead, and where is he?

He’s in his mothers study. It holds him like her arms. There’s light and _no cold, stone cell_ . He blinks because his eyes are teary. He hurt his brother, and he knows he shouldn’t. If he doesn’t look out for Carnistir, who will? If he hits Carnisitir, who won’t? And even worse than that... now his mother will be ashamed of him. How can he be anything, accomplish anything, **lead the host of the Noldor and face his mother again?**

 

_(but his mother remained in Valinor and)_

_(will never come to Middle-Earth nor trouble him there)_

_(he was thinking of Carnistir)_

 

 

ii.

Carnyo is named Morifinwe for his dark hair. His grandfather smiled so brightly when he saw it. For the first time, a newborn brother painted a jealous slash over Maitimo’s heart. It’s always this way in his family. Who has who’s face? Who has whose hair?

Maitimo has his mother’s—

_(enough of the mother)_

 

 

iii.

Nelyo is named Nelyafinwe for his father and his father’s father. He doesn’t know if his grandfather smiled when he saw his first grandchild. His grandfather smiles often. He was the first to feel loss, the kind an Elda knows only once in their life.

**But his grandfather is dead.** He can almost remember who it was that killed him—

_(no, he’s thinking of—)_

 

 

iv.

**He is in Angamando** _._ He doesn’t want to think of his brother because he loves him and it feels somehow like thinking about him is tearing him away.

 

 

v.

“Are you alright?” Maitimo asks.

The land of Middle-Earth is one of silence. The trees in Valinor lie behind many hilltops, many canopied forests, the sea, the sin of their people. The host is solemn in the evenings and in the day and... more or less always. The light of the Trees is a smudge in the western sky. The stars are brighter here. They look more like eyes than ever. At first, the Noldor said that Varda was watching them, but Maitimo thinks of the stars like tear drops. Agony. Or more likely: shame.

Down among their people, Macalaure is singing. Macalaure still likes happy songs, and everyone around him pretends they still like them, too. Maybe one day the Noldor will spend the nights in each other’s arms, in their fine-woven blankets the color of earthen jewels, relish work that makes and songs about that making.

Carnistir is sitting by himself. Out of the light of the Trees, everything is blue-cast. His black hair glows like obsidian. _For some reason, Maitimo doesn’t like that comparison._ It’s not right to say Carnyo looks lonely because he often does. His concentration looks like contempt, and his happy smiles are hard and fierce with a lowered brow or an awkward tilt to his lips.

“Of course I’m not alright,” Carnyo says and pulls the blanket closer around his cheeks. He looks young with it wrapped around his chin, long hair bunching up and spilling over it.

Maitimo sits down next to him, pulls his cloak in much the same way.

The fires are some meters off, their flicker barely lighting on the grass at their toes. The two of them lean against a trunk as wide as three Eldar.

“What about you?” Carnyo murmurs at length.

Maitimo laughs.

“Not so bad if you can laugh.”

“Terrible. Don’t tell Maco I said that.” It’s hard being the oldest. People are always looking to you and holding you to a higher standard.

Down among their people, the white paint on the star standards is blue-cast, too. There’s no wind, so they all hang limply, but no one rolls them up or lets them lie against the earth. Not yet, at least.

“But,” Maitimo says, “that’s not important.” _It gives you power, as well. People look to you for approval, and they hold you in great esteem..._ “I don’t want all that.”

Carnyo jolts and looks at him with narrowed eyes. It’s a strange look, and it makes Maitimo’s stomach roil to see his brother wild as a deer and say,

                         “What?” and

                                       “Who are you talking to ?” and

                                                                                     “Is someone there?”

 

_(remember it properly)_

 

“But,” Maitimo says, “that’s not important. I can manage. I just wanted to check on you is all.”

“Consider me checked,” Carnyo mutters. He doesn’t look at Maitimo. He doesn’t narrow his eyes.

Maitimo doesn’t try any harder.

 

vi.

Nerdanel wipes a thumb under Maitimo’s eye. “When my son cries, I cry.” But she doesn’t weep with her eyes. “It’s alright, Maitimo. I love you, and your brother will still love you, too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> on language -
> 
> the title is the Quenya cognate for the Sindarin "thang," first element in "Thangorodrim" with a meaning of "press, crowd"
> 
> considering the sons of Feanor seem to favor their mother names, i figure they might have short forms for those names, too. looking at the short forms of their father names... the only hard and fast rule seems to be an ending -o. some of the short forms just use the first element in the name wholesale ('Nelyo,' 'Cano,' 'Turco,' 'Pityo') while others seem to have some kind of phonetic alternation/mutation (the 'v' this time being a transition from 'u' to the semi-vowel 'w' to 'v,' and the 'y' in 'Moryo' as a transition from 'i' to the semi-vowel 'y'). we also only see the first element in use (and only in its entirety), but this makes sense for Feanor's sons since they all have the same second element, so it might be possible that the second element of a name could be used as the short form
> 
> with all that in mind and after much debate, i've used 'Maco' for Macalaure and 'Carnyo' for Carnistir. and i've seen Tyelco for Tyelcormo before, though i'm not sure it's ever appeared in any of Tolkien's published stuff? it follows the rules outlined above, anyways


End file.
